Debate on S. 1 has resumed on the Senate floor, with votes today expected on:

• a technical correction, to be offered by Sen. Durbin, to last week's DeMint amendment
• the DeMint amendment itself, as corrected
• a Reid amendment to require senators to pay charter rates to fly on private jets (Reid is said to be trying to address the issues of senators who have their own planes and those who live in rural states with limited air service)

All three items are expected to pass with overwhelming majorities.

Following a cloture vote, non-germane amendments will fall away, with debate and votes on some of the remaining amendments before a vote on the bill's passage by week's end.

Among these is DeMint Amendment No. 12, Sen. DeMint's resuscitation of a far-reaching Lott-Feinstein amendment in last year's lobbying and ethics bill, which would:

• require 60 Senators to waive a point of order against earmarks in conference reports that were not included in either the House or Senate versions of the underlying legislation, and
• thereupon, send the revised legislation back to the House, rather than killing it

While it raises questions about how the conference would proceed from that point, this amendment would end the pernicious practice of “air-dropping” items into legislation on the verge of being cleared for the president’s signature.

Steven Pearlstein, the business columnists for the Washington Post, has a blistering expose on Sen. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) in today's paper. Pearlstein wonders how (or perhaps why?) Sen. Baucus was able to work his way to the top of the Democrats' list to lead the Finance Committee when many if not all of his views on committee business are essentially contrary to the Democratic Party platform. A few excerpts:

But while Baucus is surely entitled to his opinions, and entitled to do what is necessary to assure his own political survival, he is not entitled to be chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which handles such key Democratic issues as health care, trade and tax policy. That position ought to be reserved for a statesman with enough political confidence and backbone that he isn't constantly sacrificing the interests of his party and his country to the narrow interests of his subsidy-addicted constituents.

You'd think Baucus would have learned his lesson in 2001, when he won the enmity of Democrats everywhere by striking the deal that led to passage of the Bush tax cuts, including the phase-out of the estate tax. Apparently not. For on the very day the new Democratic House is set to push through a long-overdue minimum-wage increase, over in the Senate, Baucus has called a hearing on how to offset the "economic hardship" caused by the higher minimum wage with yet another round of business tax breaks.

[...]

Real Democrats know that raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do -- economically, politically, morally. The question is why they have chosen a Senate Finance chairman who can't articulate that position without equivocation or apology even before the first vote is cast.

That's pretty hard hitting stuff, and Pearlstein makes a convincing argument in the full article. It's definitely worth a read.

CongressDaily ($) is reporting that House Republicans are drafting their own minimum wage increase legislation that will not include an estate tax provision. Here's the key passage:

The decision to pass on the estate tax reflects an effort on the part of Republicans to avoid heated partisan conflicts such as the pitched battle over the so-called trifecta bill last year, according to aides.

Looks like the GOP has decided the "trifecta" strategy from last year wasn't such a winner for them.